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October 25, 2006
Internet Librarian (IL2006) - A Little Bit of This and That
I have some bits of information from various programs scattered throughout my notes. Before I get to some of the major topics, let me get a few of these down.
Increasing the use of our online materials is a challenge, so I thought I'd stop by the program on that very topic. One speaker, Lesley Williams, made the point the we should always use terms that people understand. While that sounds very commonsenscical, in practice, it's easy to use labels that don't resonate with our users. For example, she suggested NOT using the word database when referring to online research services.
In addition to lists of online services such as you might have on an Intranet page, many libraries are writing subject guides in the same vein as about.com guides. Packaging information in a variety of ways certainly should help get your users to the materials they need.
There's been a lot of talk at this conference about social networks and Web 2.0. While I've yet to see anyone demonstrate tagging in a special library environment or Intranet, that doesn't mean it shouldn't or couldn't or isn't being done. But there are some experiments going on in the academic library environment, such as PennTags, which enables tagging of titles in the University of Pennsylvania library catalog. (For more information, see some of the blog posts about Penntags.) Tagging could add an interesting dimension to any library catalog. I hope some of the library software vendors are considering building this kind of feature into their products.
More later...
Comments
Cindy, If we gave Lawyers the opportunity to suggest 'keywords' for their KM contributions, or even a purchase they've recommendation for the Library, they'd love it... wouldn't they? How far would we then be from introducing the concept of tagging?
I often think that our internal branding of these concepts is as important to invoking change as the technology itself.
I really need to make it out to a IL conference.
Signed,
Frustrated in Vancouver :-)
Posted by: Steve Matthews at October 25, 2006 02:54 PM
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